I find myself eyeing the calendar, counting the days until after Labor Day. And I feel incredibly guilty about it. This is summer. And instead of lazy days, we find the whirlwind of chaos kicking up several notches. How did this happen? How do I get it to stop?
First off, we are in a whole new world when it comes to our schedules. One of the great things about living in California is that pre-schools are open year-round. That means that up until last year, the kids were in school through early August. And up until two years ago, either Jen and I were home full-time. (Jen here; me in Cambridge). That changed when we got back in the summer of 2007. That fall, Jen started grad school, and we had a whole new life of juggling duel full-time schedules. But we adjusted eventually.
But this is the first summer that Liam doesn't have school. He just finished his first year of Kindergarten at NOCCS. And so we have a patchwork of camps, playdate swapping, and schedule roulette. Jen and I are pulling our hair out, and working like mad. And again, I feel terribly guilty about all of this.
My summers, as a kid, were spent in total leisure. Of course, my mom stayed home full time until I was probably about 8 or 9 (when I became one of those strange new breeds called "Latch Key Kids!"). Still, I remember playing in baseball leagues, going to the local swimming pool every day, and playing tennis. I randomly connected with other kids in the neighborhood to play at each other's houses.
Of course, some of that will get easier when the kids are older and more independent. But right now, I fell bad that we can't just let them chill out, enjoy the weather, throw them into the car and head to the pool. Or, whatever. And the outlook is for more juggling through the rest of the summer. Sigh.
The good news is that tomorrow we get a break when we head to Berkeley Family Camp! We went last year, and had a great time. This time we're meeting some close friends who are already up there. Family Camp is a real throw back, where we eat every meal in a dining hall, there are kids' activities all day, and camp counselors who sing goofy songs during the meals. It's all very 1950s. Probably just what the doctor ordered about now. A few days off the grid. Someone else cooking every meal. And some good friends sharing it.
View Heading to Berkeley Family Camp in a larger map
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
My Favorite Classic Video Games
This is cross-posted from my Silicon Beat blog at the Mercury News:
I am no longer an avid video game player. The whole Nintendo, Xbox, Playstation competition has completely passed me by. It was only just this past weekend, while visiting some relatives in Scotts Valley, that I tried the Wii for the first time (bowling, of course, see the end of this post for why that's fitting). I have a feeling that some kind of gaming console will be in my near future because my 6-year-old spent the day playing the Wii with his cousin and he is now obsessed with getting a Wii. ("Daddy, is it too early to write to Santa Claus and ask him to bring me a Wii?")
Here's the little guy in action over the weekend, via Qik:
But I stopped playing video games sometime in the mid-1980s. Which is why this column on the Top 9 Classic Arcade Games on SFGate.com got me so excited. The story is pegged to the the California Extreme Classic Arcade Games Show returns in Santa Clara this weekend. And if I weren't headed out of town already, I'd drop everything and head over there myself.
In the SFGate.com story, three reporters compiled their nine favorite "classic" arcade games. My own defininsion of "classic" stops a lot sooner than theirs (mine is mid-1980s; theirs goes early 90s). But still, these were the games I loved. Once video games started becoming far more complex, and striving for more realism, I stopped playing. I just wasn't as interested. I felt in some way, these simpler games left far more to the imagination, and were more accessible. As games became more complex, I was going to have to invest a lot of quarters just to learn the basics before I could start having fun.
So the SFGate story hit me with plenty of nostalgia. And I agreed with a few of their choices: Tron (1982); Star Wars (1983); Battlezone (1980). But they left a few of my essential games off the list. I purposely avoided reading the comments on the SFGate story, because I wanted to go with the ones that stuck out in my mind from reading the original piece:
I am no longer an avid video game player. The whole Nintendo, Xbox, Playstation competition has completely passed me by. It was only just this past weekend, while visiting some relatives in Scotts Valley, that I tried the Wii for the first time (bowling, of course, see the end of this post for why that's fitting). I have a feeling that some kind of gaming console will be in my near future because my 6-year-old spent the day playing the Wii with his cousin and he is now obsessed with getting a Wii. ("Daddy, is it too early to write to Santa Claus and ask him to bring me a Wii?")
Here's the little guy in action over the weekend, via Qik:
But I stopped playing video games sometime in the mid-1980s. Which is why this column on the Top 9 Classic Arcade Games on SFGate.com got me so excited. The story is pegged to the the California Extreme Classic Arcade Games Show returns in Santa Clara this weekend. And if I weren't headed out of town already, I'd drop everything and head over there myself.
In the SFGate.com story, three reporters compiled their nine favorite "classic" arcade games. My own defininsion of "classic" stops a lot sooner than theirs (mine is mid-1980s; theirs goes early 90s). But still, these were the games I loved. Once video games started becoming far more complex, and striving for more realism, I stopped playing. I just wasn't as interested. I felt in some way, these simpler games left far more to the imagination, and were more accessible. As games became more complex, I was going to have to invest a lot of quarters just to learn the basics before I could start having fun.
So the SFGate story hit me with plenty of nostalgia. And I agreed with a few of their choices: Tron (1982); Star Wars (1983); Battlezone (1980). But they left a few of my essential games off the list. I purposely avoided reading the comments on the SFGate story, because I wanted to go with the ones that stuck out in my mind from reading the original piece:
Monday, July 06, 2009
Return To Blogging Here (No, really, this time I mean it!)
Well, by the looks of my last post, it's been about a year since I posted anything here. I'm working on updating some of the sidebars. But a couple things have pulled me back here.
First, I was in Cambridge last month, which triggered major bouts of nostalgia. It's funny, because when I pick it apart, I have all sorts of mixed feelings about our time there. I loved, and truly miss, the time I got to spend with the kids. But it was difficult in many ways. Liam struggled quite a bit, and Kalian was coming into her own diva-hood. So it's not like I look back at our year there as some kind of Paradise Lost. And yet, when I was there in mid-June for an MIT conference, I was struck by how much I missed the place and so many of the people we met there.
Of course, I was so busy at the conference, I barely had time to leave the three-block area around the hotel and MIT campus. But on Friday afternoon, after the conference ended, I took a cab over to our old neighborhood near Inman Square. I walked past our apartment on Leonard Avenue:
And Darwin's, where I got a memorial Robert's sandwhich. And then around the corner to Cambridge-Ellis, the pre-school Liam attended and which was a huge part of our lives there:
I was a bit misty-eyed, and I still can't explain why. But I really do miss it there.
But when I got back, I started reading through this blog, and I really appreciated all the little details that I had recorded over the year in Cambridge. Things the kids did or said, that seem epic and wonderful at the time, but are usually forgotten days or weeks later. Like how Kalian used to call raisins "ree-ree" when she was first learning to talk. I realized that there are all these things they are doing now that if I don't record them, they'll slip right by to be forgotten forever. Things like Liam's current obsession with setting up his "Maker Faire" store every day after dinner in the driveway to sell his toys and the plums growing in our back yard:
This is one of those childhood things that is wonderful and sweet, and at times a bit worrisome. Liam is constantly wanting to sell or giveaway his toys. Mostly he wants to do it to get money to buy more toys. So it's sweet that he wants to get rid of stuff, and troubling that he's so focused on getting new stuff rather than being content with what he has. But there's been another side benefit: His store has forced us to spend far more time hanging out in the front yard, and so we've been far more social with our neighbors than we typically are. Folks come over, check out the plums, and stay and chat. So the little guy is really building community, a totally unexpected benefit.
So I want to make sure that I keep track of all these little moments of wonder, as well as thinking more about my experiences of parenting. So, fingers crossed, I hope this will again become a regular blogging habit for me.
Finally, I'll end with a little sllideshow I made of our weekend hike to Ano Nuevo State Park. Jen's sister, Cindy, lives near Santa Cruz with her husband Ingemar, and daughter Annika. Older cousin Mikael was visiting from So. Cal where he's starting his fourth year of colllege. Liam and Kalian dearly love their cousins, and after we left, I was thinking this was probably one of our best visits with them ever. Mikael was totally into hanging with Liam, building motorized Lego stuff and playing the Wii. And Annika and Kalian played non-stop princess games (that's a whole 'nother post).
Here's a slideshow I made. I'm still learning iPhoto on the Mac, so this is just a little playing around:
First, I was in Cambridge last month, which triggered major bouts of nostalgia. It's funny, because when I pick it apart, I have all sorts of mixed feelings about our time there. I loved, and truly miss, the time I got to spend with the kids. But it was difficult in many ways. Liam struggled quite a bit, and Kalian was coming into her own diva-hood. So it's not like I look back at our year there as some kind of Paradise Lost. And yet, when I was there in mid-June for an MIT conference, I was struck by how much I missed the place and so many of the people we met there.
Of course, I was so busy at the conference, I barely had time to leave the three-block area around the hotel and MIT campus. But on Friday afternoon, after the conference ended, I took a cab over to our old neighborhood near Inman Square. I walked past our apartment on Leonard Avenue:
And Darwin's, where I got a memorial Robert's sandwhich. And then around the corner to Cambridge-Ellis, the pre-school Liam attended and which was a huge part of our lives there:
I was a bit misty-eyed, and I still can't explain why. But I really do miss it there.
But when I got back, I started reading through this blog, and I really appreciated all the little details that I had recorded over the year in Cambridge. Things the kids did or said, that seem epic and wonderful at the time, but are usually forgotten days or weeks later. Like how Kalian used to call raisins "ree-ree" when she was first learning to talk. I realized that there are all these things they are doing now that if I don't record them, they'll slip right by to be forgotten forever. Things like Liam's current obsession with setting up his "Maker Faire" store every day after dinner in the driveway to sell his toys and the plums growing in our back yard:
This is one of those childhood things that is wonderful and sweet, and at times a bit worrisome. Liam is constantly wanting to sell or giveaway his toys. Mostly he wants to do it to get money to buy more toys. So it's sweet that he wants to get rid of stuff, and troubling that he's so focused on getting new stuff rather than being content with what he has. But there's been another side benefit: His store has forced us to spend far more time hanging out in the front yard, and so we've been far more social with our neighbors than we typically are. Folks come over, check out the plums, and stay and chat. So the little guy is really building community, a totally unexpected benefit.
So I want to make sure that I keep track of all these little moments of wonder, as well as thinking more about my experiences of parenting. So, fingers crossed, I hope this will again become a regular blogging habit for me.
Finally, I'll end with a little sllideshow I made of our weekend hike to Ano Nuevo State Park. Jen's sister, Cindy, lives near Santa Cruz with her husband Ingemar, and daughter Annika. Older cousin Mikael was visiting from So. Cal where he's starting his fourth year of colllege. Liam and Kalian dearly love their cousins, and after we left, I was thinking this was probably one of our best visits with them ever. Mikael was totally into hanging with Liam, building motorized Lego stuff and playing the Wii. And Annika and Kalian played non-stop princess games (that's a whole 'nother post).
Here's a slideshow I made. I'm still learning iPhoto on the Mac, so this is just a little playing around:
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Long time, no blog
Well, actually I've been blogging lots of other places, mostly related to my professional life. But I've neglected this blog for over a year, as you can see, since we returned from Cambridge to Oakland. But I've been thinking about cranking it back up. And I thought I'd start with an e-mail I recently sent to friends in Cambridge filling them in on our lives since we left last year:
Greetings:
This is how insane our lives have been over the past year since we left Cambridge: I started writing this e-mail back in January. Then I re-started it a couple of times since. And I'm just now finally -- Finally! -- finishing it off. But this seems like a good time to say "Howdy!" and give everyone a brief update on our lives since we returned to Oakland last summer.
It's shocking to me still to think it's been a whole year. Despite only being in Cambridge for one year, there are so many people and places that we really miss. If only I could magically transport Darwin's and the Full Moon Cafe out West...Not to mention all the great folks we met at the Kennedy School, Kids Coop, and Cambridge-Ellis.
So what have we been doing?
Our departure from Cambridge last summer was crazy. Jen graduated, we packed like mad, and then hopped on a plane. There was barely time to catch a breath and say a proper goodbye. But we were excited to get back to see friends in California we hadn't seen in a year. We opted not to visit California during our year in Cambridge, so it had been almost a year since we’d seen our friends back here. Our re-entry was slow, in part because we spent the first couple months trying to decide whether to move into a group home with some dear friends in Berkeley, or whether to stay in our home in Oakland. We spent those first few weeks in our Oakland house, but didn't actually unpack in case we decided to move out again. So there were several weeks of living out our suitcases, and agonizing over what to do.
Eventually, though, we decided to stay in our own place, and finally began to unpack and settle. Of course, then school started.
As many of you may know, Jen was accepted into a PhD program in the sociology department at the University of California at Berkeley. She plans to focus on examining the digital divide. Her program began last August and she just completed her first year (of what I hope is only six years, but tends to average 10 years! Gulp.) But the good news is that she loved the program. She landed a couple of prestigious fellowships in her first year. And she just finished her first year and has a little break during the summer, though not much. Her class is a good group of folks, though I think we might be the only married couple and, of course, the only people with kids in the bunch.
Liam retuned to his old pre-school in Berkeley. He really misses a lot of his friends from Cambridge-Ellis pre-school. He likes to look through his C-E yearbook and still occasionally pulls out his cushion to use as his pillow at night. At the same time, he was very excited to see his old friends at his Berkeley pre-school. We had planned to have him drop in once a week or so after we got back. But he begged to go just about every day last summer, mostly just to see his friends. It’s been a great year for him as he’s re-connected with his school friends, many of whom he’s known since birth. And last summer he learned to ride a bike, which was very exciting. Now he’s getting ready for Kindergarten in a few weeks, which is mind boggling to me. That’s also created new anxiety for us: We won a spot through a lottery in a very good local charter school. So now we’re trying to choose between that and our very good neighborhood school. It’s been three months and we still can’t make up our minds about where to send him!
Kalian really missed her Co-op friends terribly. She was only one when we left Oakland in 2006, and so hadn’t grown attached to other kids back here. She likes to flip through her little Co-op picture book and try to remember all the names of the kids. And she’s having fun in her new pre-school. Having just turned three, she’s embraced all things princess (sigh). And if possible, she’s become more precocious. She’s 3 going on 14. I keep waiting for her to ask to borrow the car. We found a sweet little home-based pre-school for her. And it’s been great to see her make her own set of friends, rather than just being dragged along to hang with her brother’s buddies.
With Jen in grad school, this year marked the first time we’d both been working outside the house full-time. Yes, I know that’s the reality for most folks. But it was still a big shift for us, learning to juggle two work schedules, crazy carpools, and sick days. We survived, but it certainly was a whole new level of stress!
Speaking of stress, I returned to work at The San Jose Mercury News outside the house after a year of being a stay-at-home dad. I was surprised at how little I missed work while I was back east. It was difficult timing, as we just had layoffs right before I got back. We’ve had two more rounds since then. Sadly, the industry I love is crumbling. I’ve managed to hang on so far and just started a new gig as a business columnist, which means I write twice each week about issues related to Silicon Valley, and have my goofy picture in the paper now. My column is here: (http://www.mercurynews.com/chris_obrien/) and my blog is here: (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/obrien).
Just to make life even more insane, I received a grant just before I left Cambridge to research and design the “newsroom of the future” under a program run by the Knight Foundation. So on top of everything else going on in our lives, I was running this project on the side, which is formally called The Next Newsroom Project: (http://www.nextnewsroom.com). That kept me up late almost every night, required a lot of extra travel, and even had me planning a conference. But thankfully, it’s just about over.
With all this craziness, life is finally – Finally! – starting to settle down a bit. We’re looking forward to a couple of nice vacations in August, including several days at Berkeley Family Camp. And we’re trying to just enjoy the chilly, Bay Area summer days and relax a bit before school cranks back up.
Okay, this was not such a short update. But there it is.
Please keep in touch, though I’ve been terrible about it myself. And do let us know if you're ever visiting the West Coast. You'll always have friends here to visit.
All the best,
Chris O'Brien
San Jose Mercury News
Twitter: sjcobrien
Greetings:
This is how insane our lives have been over the past year since we left Cambridge: I started writing this e-mail back in January. Then I re-started it a couple of times since. And I'm just now finally -- Finally! -- finishing it off. But this seems like a good time to say "Howdy!" and give everyone a brief update on our lives since we returned to Oakland last summer.
It's shocking to me still to think it's been a whole year. Despite only being in Cambridge for one year, there are so many people and places that we really miss. If only I could magically transport Darwin's and the Full Moon Cafe out West...Not to mention all the great folks we met at the Kennedy School, Kids Coop, and Cambridge-Ellis.
So what have we been doing?
Our departure from Cambridge last summer was crazy. Jen graduated, we packed like mad, and then hopped on a plane. There was barely time to catch a breath and say a proper goodbye. But we were excited to get back to see friends in California we hadn't seen in a year. We opted not to visit California during our year in Cambridge, so it had been almost a year since we’d seen our friends back here. Our re-entry was slow, in part because we spent the first couple months trying to decide whether to move into a group home with some dear friends in Berkeley, or whether to stay in our home in Oakland. We spent those first few weeks in our Oakland house, but didn't actually unpack in case we decided to move out again. So there were several weeks of living out our suitcases, and agonizing over what to do.
Eventually, though, we decided to stay in our own place, and finally began to unpack and settle. Of course, then school started.
As many of you may know, Jen was accepted into a PhD program in the sociology department at the University of California at Berkeley. She plans to focus on examining the digital divide. Her program began last August and she just completed her first year (of what I hope is only six years, but tends to average 10 years! Gulp.) But the good news is that she loved the program. She landed a couple of prestigious fellowships in her first year. And she just finished her first year and has a little break during the summer, though not much. Her class is a good group of folks, though I think we might be the only married couple and, of course, the only people with kids in the bunch.
Liam retuned to his old pre-school in Berkeley. He really misses a lot of his friends from Cambridge-Ellis pre-school. He likes to look through his C-E yearbook and still occasionally pulls out his cushion to use as his pillow at night. At the same time, he was very excited to see his old friends at his Berkeley pre-school. We had planned to have him drop in once a week or so after we got back. But he begged to go just about every day last summer, mostly just to see his friends. It’s been a great year for him as he’s re-connected with his school friends, many of whom he’s known since birth. And last summer he learned to ride a bike, which was very exciting. Now he’s getting ready for Kindergarten in a few weeks, which is mind boggling to me. That’s also created new anxiety for us: We won a spot through a lottery in a very good local charter school. So now we’re trying to choose between that and our very good neighborhood school. It’s been three months and we still can’t make up our minds about where to send him!
Kalian really missed her Co-op friends terribly. She was only one when we left Oakland in 2006, and so hadn’t grown attached to other kids back here. She likes to flip through her little Co-op picture book and try to remember all the names of the kids. And she’s having fun in her new pre-school. Having just turned three, she’s embraced all things princess (sigh). And if possible, she’s become more precocious. She’s 3 going on 14. I keep waiting for her to ask to borrow the car. We found a sweet little home-based pre-school for her. And it’s been great to see her make her own set of friends, rather than just being dragged along to hang with her brother’s buddies.
With Jen in grad school, this year marked the first time we’d both been working outside the house full-time. Yes, I know that’s the reality for most folks. But it was still a big shift for us, learning to juggle two work schedules, crazy carpools, and sick days. We survived, but it certainly was a whole new level of stress!
Speaking of stress, I returned to work at The San Jose Mercury News outside the house after a year of being a stay-at-home dad. I was surprised at how little I missed work while I was back east. It was difficult timing, as we just had layoffs right before I got back. We’ve had two more rounds since then. Sadly, the industry I love is crumbling. I’ve managed to hang on so far and just started a new gig as a business columnist, which means I write twice each week about issues related to Silicon Valley, and have my goofy picture in the paper now. My column is here: (http://www.mercurynews.com/chris_obrien/) and my blog is here: (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/obrien).
Just to make life even more insane, I received a grant just before I left Cambridge to research and design the “newsroom of the future” under a program run by the Knight Foundation. So on top of everything else going on in our lives, I was running this project on the side, which is formally called The Next Newsroom Project: (http://www.nextnewsroom.com). That kept me up late almost every night, required a lot of extra travel, and even had me planning a conference. But thankfully, it’s just about over.
With all this craziness, life is finally – Finally! – starting to settle down a bit. We’re looking forward to a couple of nice vacations in August, including several days at Berkeley Family Camp. And we’re trying to just enjoy the chilly, Bay Area summer days and relax a bit before school cranks back up.
Okay, this was not such a short update. But there it is.
Please keep in touch, though I’ve been terrible about it myself. And do let us know if you're ever visiting the West Coast. You'll always have friends here to visit.
All the best,
Chris O'Brien
San Jose Mercury News
Twitter: sjcobrien
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Liam's last day of preschool...
We're in the final countdown. And among the big milestones this week, Liam had his last day at Cambridge-Ellis. Here's an overly long clip of their last circle time at the end of last day.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
About that trip to Miami...
One of the reasons my blogs have occasionally ceased for weeks at a time is because I've been working on a grant proposal for a project since last Fall for The Chronicle, my old student newspaper at Duke University. Though we'd found out the Knight Foundation had selected our proposal several weeks ago, we weren't really allowed to talk about it until they announced the winners last week at an Interactive Media conference in Miami. The Miami Herald did a story about it here.
The project will attempt to design a "newsroom of the future" for The Chronicle through a web site that invites anyone who is interested to collaborate in the process. In addition, as we gather research and make decisions, we'll post everything on the site so that it can a resource for all campus media as they begin to grapple with how to overhaul their own newsrooms.
There's a temporary version of the site that I built here: www.NextNewsroom.com . But let me assure you, we're working with some folks to develop the real site now that we have a bit of money...So please, don't mock mine...
So how did I get into this mess? Well, let me tell you...
Last fall, I took the kids down to Chapel Hill to visit Jen's parents. Over the weekend, I stopped at a Chronicle alumni event where a Duke administrator was giving a presentation on a proposal to build a third campus at Duke. The new campus included plans to create a student media center that would bring The Chronicle, the student TV station, and radio station, under one roof. The Chronicle was nervous because it has a great location on the main campus and was worried that the administration was trying to force it out.
My reaction was quite different. I thought this was an incredible opportunity for the paper: Someone is offering to build a new building from scratch. How many other campus papers would kill for that chance? But more importantly, given all the radical changes going on in the news business, this seemed like an amazing opportunity to create an ambitious plan for the center. At lunch that day, I argued to the Chronicle folks that they should embrace this moment as a fantastic opportunity for the paper.
When I returned to Cambridge, Jen mentioned something about a new Knight Foundation Challenge Grant. She was taking a class with John Carroll, the former LA Times editor, and he had told his students about it. I suggested to The Chronicle that they ought to apply for some planning money. And of course that evolved into me writing the grant application, with substantial assistance from another Chronicle alum, Kath Sullivan. Lo and behold, the Knight Foundation picked us, though we were one of the smaller grants. We get $40,000 for the project. Some guy at the MIT Media Lab is getting $5 million. So, there you go...
But, back to the project. I hope to use this project to reconsider just about every aspect of what The Chronicle does. What should its role be on campus? What should be the relationship to other campus media? How can it prepare journalists for the radical changes that are occurring in the industry? What should it be doing with new media? Should the paper play a role in developing citizen media throughout the campus? Or helping all students develop media literacy as they become producers and not just consumers?
We're not necessarily pushing an answer or an outcome. Rather, we hope to create a process to study these questions that will lead to an ambitious proposal. Among the things I'll be doing over the next year is visiting various newsrooms that have attempted some type of convergence, interviewing lots of experts, and managing what I hope will be a substantial number of alumni volunteers. At the site, we're planning to try using a f interactive features that are in the works, such as a wiki to let folks actually help us write the proposal, a forum for discussion and commentary, and a few other things.
Among the more daunting aspects is that the Knight Foundation attached one condition to our grant: We have to build a version of the proposed newsroom in Second Life, the virtual community. I have no experience with this sort of thing, but I guess I'll have to get some quickly.
Beside the site, we will be holding a conference on the "Newsroom of the Future" next spring at Duke. And next May, we have to deliver an actual proposal to Duke...
Oh, and I'll be doing all this outside my regular full-time job at the Mercury News, where I report for duty on June 9.
So, there it is. I'm probably completely insane. But on the other hand, I'm incredibly excited. The trip to Miami last week was unbelievably thrilling. We met the other grantees for the first time, and they are an incredible group. Oddly enough, I'm the only grantee of the 30 or so who works full-time at a daily newspaper. People were incredibly excited about the Next Newsroom project and kept stopping me, asking for details, and how they could get involved. The folks I've contacted at Duke are also incredibly enthusiastic about the possibilities...
Perhaps the best part of last week, was the support and encouragement among the various grantees. It's a been a grim few years in the world of journalism, especially at the Merc with multiple rounds of buyouts and layoffs and our paper being sold -- twice! -- last year. It was nice to be surrounded by folks last week
who were so optimistic about the future for a change...Whether that outlook is warranted, I guess, we'll have to see...
The project will attempt to design a "newsroom of the future" for The Chronicle through a web site that invites anyone who is interested to collaborate in the process. In addition, as we gather research and make decisions, we'll post everything on the site so that it can a resource for all campus media as they begin to grapple with how to overhaul their own newsrooms.
There's a temporary version of the site that I built here: www.NextNewsroom.com . But let me assure you, we're working with some folks to develop the real site now that we have a bit of money...So please, don't mock mine...
So how did I get into this mess? Well, let me tell you...
Last fall, I took the kids down to Chapel Hill to visit Jen's parents. Over the weekend, I stopped at a Chronicle alumni event where a Duke administrator was giving a presentation on a proposal to build a third campus at Duke. The new campus included plans to create a student media center that would bring The Chronicle, the student TV station, and radio station, under one roof. The Chronicle was nervous because it has a great location on the main campus and was worried that the administration was trying to force it out.
My reaction was quite different. I thought this was an incredible opportunity for the paper: Someone is offering to build a new building from scratch. How many other campus papers would kill for that chance? But more importantly, given all the radical changes going on in the news business, this seemed like an amazing opportunity to create an ambitious plan for the center. At lunch that day, I argued to the Chronicle folks that they should embrace this moment as a fantastic opportunity for the paper.
When I returned to Cambridge, Jen mentioned something about a new Knight Foundation Challenge Grant. She was taking a class with John Carroll, the former LA Times editor, and he had told his students about it. I suggested to The Chronicle that they ought to apply for some planning money. And of course that evolved into me writing the grant application, with substantial assistance from another Chronicle alum, Kath Sullivan. Lo and behold, the Knight Foundation picked us, though we were one of the smaller grants. We get $40,000 for the project. Some guy at the MIT Media Lab is getting $5 million. So, there you go...
But, back to the project. I hope to use this project to reconsider just about every aspect of what The Chronicle does. What should its role be on campus? What should be the relationship to other campus media? How can it prepare journalists for the radical changes that are occurring in the industry? What should it be doing with new media? Should the paper play a role in developing citizen media throughout the campus? Or helping all students develop media literacy as they become producers and not just consumers?
We're not necessarily pushing an answer or an outcome. Rather, we hope to create a process to study these questions that will lead to an ambitious proposal. Among the things I'll be doing over the next year is visiting various newsrooms that have attempted some type of convergence, interviewing lots of experts, and managing what I hope will be a substantial number of alumni volunteers. At the site, we're planning to try using a f interactive features that are in the works, such as a wiki to let folks actually help us write the proposal, a forum for discussion and commentary, and a few other things.
Among the more daunting aspects is that the Knight Foundation attached one condition to our grant: We have to build a version of the proposed newsroom in Second Life, the virtual community. I have no experience with this sort of thing, but I guess I'll have to get some quickly.
Beside the site, we will be holding a conference on the "Newsroom of the Future" next spring at Duke. And next May, we have to deliver an actual proposal to Duke...
Oh, and I'll be doing all this outside my regular full-time job at the Mercury News, where I report for duty on June 9.
So, there it is. I'm probably completely insane. But on the other hand, I'm incredibly excited. The trip to Miami last week was unbelievably thrilling. We met the other grantees for the first time, and they are an incredible group. Oddly enough, I'm the only grantee of the 30 or so who works full-time at a daily newspaper. People were incredibly excited about the Next Newsroom project and kept stopping me, asking for details, and how they could get involved. The folks I've contacted at Duke are also incredibly enthusiastic about the possibilities...
Perhaps the best part of last week, was the support and encouragement among the various grantees. It's a been a grim few years in the world of journalism, especially at the Merc with multiple rounds of buyouts and layoffs and our paper being sold -- twice! -- last year. It was nice to be surrounded by folks last week
who were so optimistic about the future for a change...Whether that outlook is warranted, I guess, we'll have to see...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
A week of Lasts and Firsts...
Monday was officially my last day as a full-time, stay at home dad.
On Tuesday, I flew to Miami for three days, returning on Thursday night. I was there to receive my first grant. More on this in the post below.
Friday was my last shift as a caregiver at Kids Coop Cambridge.
On Friday, Jen also completed her final work as a mid career masters candidate at Harvard's Kennedy School of Governmnent.
Each of these deserve a post unto themselves. But for now, I'll leave it at that.
It's now just two weeks until we return to the Bay Area. Lots to do between now and then. There's all the logistics, of course, packing, arranging, planning. There are a ton of people we want to get together with our here before we leave. And it seems like time is running short.
On Tuesday, I flew to Miami for three days, returning on Thursday night. I was there to receive my first grant. More on this in the post below.
Friday was my last shift as a caregiver at Kids Coop Cambridge.
On Friday, Jen also completed her final work as a mid career masters candidate at Harvard's Kennedy School of Governmnent.
Each of these deserve a post unto themselves. But for now, I'll leave it at that.
It's now just two weeks until we return to the Bay Area. Lots to do between now and then. There's all the logistics, of course, packing, arranging, planning. There are a ton of people we want to get together with our here before we leave. And it seems like time is running short.
Friday, May 11, 2007
The First - and probably only - SAHD Podcast
Well, after fumbling around for months, I've finally recorded a podcast. And as the title suggests, this may be the one an only as far as stay-at-home dad life goes. Anyway, give a listen and any feedback will be appreciated. Enjoy:
I'll keep this permanently posted in left-hand column, for those of you who just can't get enough.
I'll keep this permanently posted in left-hand column, for those of you who just can't get enough.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The New Human Body...
Today, I spent my morning over at a conference at MIT called "Human 2.0" or h2.O. It was hosted by the MIT Media Lab. I had hoped to do more stuff like this while I was out here. But it hasn't worked out that way, and that's fine. Still, I really wanted to check out the Media Lab. I've interviewed lots of folks at the Media Lab over the years, and have always been fascinated by the work over there.
When I called the press office, they invited me to attend this conference, which frankly I didn't know much about. But the two speakers I saw were both fascinating.
The conference looks at how to seamlessly move "technology into our bodies and minds in ways that will truly expand human capability." So what does that mean?
The first speaker I saw was Rosalind Picard who works on "affective computing." This includes things like trying to break down how people express emotions and teaching computers how to interpret that. It was a fascinating speech. But in particular, because it turns out that one of the potential applications was for people with autism. Picard's group is developing wearable computers that help autistic people respond to other people's emotions. It's called an "Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthesis."
I couldn't help but think of Liam during the speech. While he's not autistic, he faces many of the same social challenges. He can't make eye contact with people, which it makes it hard for him to receive all the signals they send and process them. Inevitably with other kids, this means he ends up walking away or getting left behind.
Picard made the analogy of a chess game. There are 20 possible opening moves in a chess game. By the fifth move, there are almost 5 million possible combinations of moves. Compare that to the human face, which can register 44 expressions. In just a simple back and forth, there are already millions of combinations. And rather than having minutes to process like a chess game, a person has milliseconds. If a person takes just a few milliseconds too long to process, like an autistic person, or like Liam, then they get lost very quickly.
I'm not sure if wearable computers are the answer. But it's an interesting emerging field.
The second speaker was Deb Roy who works with the Cognitive Machines group. What does that mean?: "Our goal is to create machines that learn to communicate in human- like ways by grasping the meaning of words in context and to understand how children acquire language through physical and social interaction."
How are they doing that? By trying to understand how kids acquire language. And how is Roy doing that? Well, he just happens to have a son who is just under two years of age. And since the kid was born, Roy and his wife have had video cameras installed in every room of their house and have recorded virtually every moment of their son's life. Now they are trying to analyze the millions of hours of digital video to better understand the mechanics of language acquisition. He calls it the "Human Speechome Project."
At the conference, Roy showed video collages of every time his son said "ball" over the course of a year. It was both sweet, and a bit disturbing. I wonder how it will affect that kids when he's older?
When I called the press office, they invited me to attend this conference, which frankly I didn't know much about. But the two speakers I saw were both fascinating.
The conference looks at how to seamlessly move "technology into our bodies and minds in ways that will truly expand human capability." So what does that mean?
The first speaker I saw was Rosalind Picard who works on "affective computing." This includes things like trying to break down how people express emotions and teaching computers how to interpret that. It was a fascinating speech. But in particular, because it turns out that one of the potential applications was for people with autism. Picard's group is developing wearable computers that help autistic people respond to other people's emotions. It's called an "Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthesis."
I couldn't help but think of Liam during the speech. While he's not autistic, he faces many of the same social challenges. He can't make eye contact with people, which it makes it hard for him to receive all the signals they send and process them. Inevitably with other kids, this means he ends up walking away or getting left behind.
Picard made the analogy of a chess game. There are 20 possible opening moves in a chess game. By the fifth move, there are almost 5 million possible combinations of moves. Compare that to the human face, which can register 44 expressions. In just a simple back and forth, there are already millions of combinations. And rather than having minutes to process like a chess game, a person has milliseconds. If a person takes just a few milliseconds too long to process, like an autistic person, or like Liam, then they get lost very quickly.
I'm not sure if wearable computers are the answer. But it's an interesting emerging field.
The second speaker was Deb Roy who works with the Cognitive Machines group. What does that mean?: "Our goal is to create machines that learn to communicate in human- like ways by grasping the meaning of words in context and to understand how children acquire language through physical and social interaction."
How are they doing that? By trying to understand how kids acquire language. And how is Roy doing that? Well, he just happens to have a son who is just under two years of age. And since the kid was born, Roy and his wife have had video cameras installed in every room of their house and have recorded virtually every moment of their son's life. Now they are trying to analyze the millions of hours of digital video to better understand the mechanics of language acquisition. He calls it the "Human Speechome Project."
At the conference, Roy showed video collages of every time his son said "ball" over the course of a year. It was both sweet, and a bit disturbing. I wonder how it will affect that kids when he's older?
Monday, May 07, 2007
What I'll Miss...What I Won't Miss...
Okay, here's what I'll miss, and what I won't miss about life out here:
What I'll miss:
1. Darwin's. Our favorite cafe, conveniently located around the corner from Liam's preschool.
2. Full Moon Cafe. Remember that kid-friendly restaurant with a play area for kids, and kick-ass kinda-gourmet food that you have fantasized about? They have one here. I want to eat there every day.
3. The Museum Of Science.
4. The renovated Children's Museum. It rocks!
5. Boston Commons. Frog pond.
6. Summer. Heat. Not wearing a sweater on the 4th of July.
7. Having extended family nearby.
8. Candlepin bowling.
9. Cambridge-Ellis (Liam's preschool).
10. Coop! Kalian just learned how to say it ("Tow-op.")
What I won't miss:
1. Cash only. A shocking number of places out here only take cash. Really. No ATM or credit cards. It's Darwin's only flaw.
2. Pumping gas. For some reason, the gas pumps don't have that hook on the nozzle that lets you squeeze it, and then lock it. Instead, you have to squeeze and hold the nozzle the entire time you're pumping. Yes, I'm spoiled. But I like my conveniences!
3. The Drivers. They've invented their own system of driving out here, and it involves a lot of horn honking. I fantasize about carrying a club in the car now. It's a sickness.
4. The Boston Globe. We live in Cambridge, and they can never deliver the paper before 7:30 a.m. And they wonder why they're dying?
5. The T. Not kid friendly. Not stroller friendly.
6. Our apartment. Great location. But no yard. Not very big. We've had ants. We've had mice. Ick.
7. The desperate hour between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. when Liam and Kalian draw swords and attemtpt to simultaneously kill each other, destroy apartment, and unleash the apocalypse.
What I'll miss:
1. Darwin's. Our favorite cafe, conveniently located around the corner from Liam's preschool.
2. Full Moon Cafe. Remember that kid-friendly restaurant with a play area for kids, and kick-ass kinda-gourmet food that you have fantasized about? They have one here. I want to eat there every day.
3. The Museum Of Science.
4. The renovated Children's Museum. It rocks!
5. Boston Commons. Frog pond.
6. Summer. Heat. Not wearing a sweater on the 4th of July.
7. Having extended family nearby.
8. Candlepin bowling.
9. Cambridge-Ellis (Liam's preschool).
10. Coop! Kalian just learned how to say it ("Tow-op.")
What I won't miss:
1. Cash only. A shocking number of places out here only take cash. Really. No ATM or credit cards. It's Darwin's only flaw.
2. Pumping gas. For some reason, the gas pumps don't have that hook on the nozzle that lets you squeeze it, and then lock it. Instead, you have to squeeze and hold the nozzle the entire time you're pumping. Yes, I'm spoiled. But I like my conveniences!
3. The Drivers. They've invented their own system of driving out here, and it involves a lot of horn honking. I fantasize about carrying a club in the car now. It's a sickness.
4. The Boston Globe. We live in Cambridge, and they can never deliver the paper before 7:30 a.m. And they wonder why they're dying?
5. The T. Not kid friendly. Not stroller friendly.
6. Our apartment. Great location. But no yard. Not very big. We've had ants. We've had mice. Ick.
7. The desperate hour between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. when Liam and Kalian draw swords and attemtpt to simultaneously kill each other, destroy apartment, and unleash the apocalypse.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
I need a raise...
As part of a mother's day promotion, Salary.com has posted a salary calculator for stay-at-home moms. Of course, on some level, this is nonsense, right? Still, I couldn't resist working my through their data:
So how do they break down those job functions?
Even better, there was a wizard that allows you to adjust the salary based on location. So based on that, in theory, when Jen was a stay-at-home mom with 2 preschool kids in Oakland, her salary would have been: $161,557.
Of course, I was a bit miffed that the focus was exclusively on moms. Then I noticed a small link at the bottom that said, "What about dad?" When I clicked, it took me to an equivalent calculator for dads. My salary as a SAHD in Cambridge: $144,081. Hmmm. I wonder if I could use that to haggle for a whopping raise when I return to work next month? Probably not.
In any case, the other interesting thing to note is the difference in the ways they break down the task for a mom versus a dad. For instance, the Salary.com wizard lists "housekeeper" as a mom's top ask at 18.9 hours per week. Dad's top task is "day care center teacher" at 17 hours per week. The calculator assumes a dad spends half as much time doing laundry, but more time cooking. A mom spends 5.8 hours per week being a psychologist, but a dad only spends 2.3 hours. On the other hand, dads apparently spend 2.3 hours as a groundskeeper, while mom spends none.
To see what you're stay-at-home value is, check out the calculator here.
Based on a survey of more than 40,000 mothers, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing 10 typical job functions would equate to an annual salary of $138,095 for a stay-at-home mom.
So how do they break down those job functions?
The job titles that best matched a mom's definition of her work are (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO and psychologist.
Even better, there was a wizard that allows you to adjust the salary based on location. So based on that, in theory, when Jen was a stay-at-home mom with 2 preschool kids in Oakland, her salary would have been: $161,557.
Of course, I was a bit miffed that the focus was exclusively on moms. Then I noticed a small link at the bottom that said, "What about dad?" When I clicked, it took me to an equivalent calculator for dads. My salary as a SAHD in Cambridge: $144,081. Hmmm. I wonder if I could use that to haggle for a whopping raise when I return to work next month? Probably not.
In any case, the other interesting thing to note is the difference in the ways they break down the task for a mom versus a dad. For instance, the Salary.com wizard lists "housekeeper" as a mom's top ask at 18.9 hours per week. Dad's top task is "day care center teacher" at 17 hours per week. The calculator assumes a dad spends half as much time doing laundry, but more time cooking. A mom spends 5.8 hours per week being a psychologist, but a dad only spends 2.3 hours. On the other hand, dads apparently spend 2.3 hours as a groundskeeper, while mom spends none.
To see what you're stay-at-home value is, check out the calculator here.
T-Ball...
I took Liam (and Kalian) to a Cambridge T-Ball class this morning. Liam had a ball, and two of his classmates from his pre-school were there, Reed and Sammy:
Friday, May 04, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Going to Boston?
So, there's some band named Augustana which has a song that's a hit, at least out here. It's all about leaving life in California and going to...Boston. Uh, what?
Let us hear from these poets:
Tired of the weather? Nice in the summer? Some snow would be nice? Yes, some snow would have been nice. However, this past winter, I think we got snow four times, and it was either ice or slush. And in either case, it was mostly a nuisance.
Other notable tracks on their lastest album: "California's Burning."
Let us hear from these poets:
She said I think I'll go to Boston...
I think I'll start a new life,
I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name,
I'll get out of California, I'm tired of the weather,
I think I'll get a lover and fly em out to Spain...
I think I'll go to Boston,
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind...
I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset,
I hear it's nice in the Summer, some snow would be nice... oh yeah
Tired of the weather? Nice in the summer? Some snow would be nice? Yes, some snow would have been nice. However, this past winter, I think we got snow four times, and it was either ice or slush. And in either case, it was mostly a nuisance.
Other notable tracks on their lastest album: "California's Burning."
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
I love this guy...
I've been doing a little bit of research to reflect back on my year as a stay-at-home dad. And in the process, I came across this little treasure. It's a great Washington Post video project called "onBeing." And in this segment, we meet Jeffrey, a SAHD, and his son, Beckham:
http://specials.washingtonpost.com/onbeing/#041707-1v-JeffreyB.1
http://specials.washingtonpost.com/onbeing/#041707-1v-JeffreyB.1
Monday, April 30, 2007
I don't think we're cursed, but...
Last year, just before we set off for our Cambridge adventure, a section of Boston's "Big Dig" collapsed and killed a woman. The tunnel was closed for months causing traffic nightmares, especially if you wanted to go to the airport...
Now, here we are in April, about to head back to the Bay Area. And we see in the news that a gasoline truck has exploded on one of the major interchanges, collapsing part of the highway. Traffic nightmares are expected for months to come.
Coincidence?
Now, here we are in April, about to head back to the Bay Area. And we see in the news that a gasoline truck has exploded on one of the major interchanges, collapsing part of the highway. Traffic nightmares are expected for months to come.
Coincidence?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Going to Carolina...
Last week, I made a whirlwind trip down to North Carolina. Normally, it's the kind of travel that I hate, and I'm glad I don't have the kind of job or life that involves constant business travel. But, of course, after 10 months with Thing One and Thing Two, sitting in the airport for four hours feels like liberation.
On Thursday, I picked up Jen from her class at MIT, and then walked to a nearby T station to get to the airport. I was three hours early for my flight. But no matter, I sat at the gate, reading the paper and listening to my iPod. Weeeee! I arrived at Raleigh around midnight, picked up a rental car and drove to Jen's parents house in Chapel Hill.
In the morning, I had a bunch of appointments at Duke for a project I'm working on for The Chronicle, the student newspaper. (More on this later). It was a glorious North Carolina day. The kind of mild spring day, when the sun is shining, and everything is just blooming, that makes me miss that area terribly.
I was back at the airport at 4 p.m., back on a plane, and back home just before midnight. Within about 30 seconds of walking in the door, Kalian was awake, screaming. I dropped my backpack, laid down in bed with her, and fell asleep. Back to my real job, as it were.
On Thursday, I picked up Jen from her class at MIT, and then walked to a nearby T station to get to the airport. I was three hours early for my flight. But no matter, I sat at the gate, reading the paper and listening to my iPod. Weeeee! I arrived at Raleigh around midnight, picked up a rental car and drove to Jen's parents house in Chapel Hill.
In the morning, I had a bunch of appointments at Duke for a project I'm working on for The Chronicle, the student newspaper. (More on this later). It was a glorious North Carolina day. The kind of mild spring day, when the sun is shining, and everything is just blooming, that makes me miss that area terribly.
I was back at the airport at 4 p.m., back on a plane, and back home just before midnight. Within about 30 seconds of walking in the door, Kalian was awake, screaming. I dropped my backpack, laid down in bed with her, and fell asleep. Back to my real job, as it were.
Go West, young man...?
Recently overheard in our car:
Liam: "Kalian, do you want to go back to Oakland?"
Kalian: "Yeah."
Liam: "Well, Kalian, we are never going back to Oakland. We have to stay in Cabridge. Okay?"
Kalian: "Otay."
Me: "Liam, are you trying to say that you're going to miss Cambridge?"
Liam: "Yeah."
Me: "What are you going to miss about Cambridge?"
Liam: "Nothing."
Me: "Are you excited to go back to Oakland?"
Liam: "Well...I don't know."
Liam: "Kalian, do you want to go back to Oakland?"
Kalian: "Yeah."
Liam: "Well, Kalian, we are never going back to Oakland. We have to stay in Cabridge. Okay?"
Kalian: "Otay."
Me: "Liam, are you trying to say that you're going to miss Cambridge?"
Liam: "Yeah."
Me: "What are you going to miss about Cambridge?"
Liam: "Nothing."
Me: "Are you excited to go back to Oakland?"
Liam: "Well...I don't know."
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